Golden Cheetah had brought his gas mask along with him that morning, just in case he had a chance to slip inside and see what the inside looked like today. He was fast, sure, but he wasn't immune to ebola. And he sure didn't want to catch some organ eating disease because he was too lazy to bring some protection. He had been spying with his binoculars as much as he could but as the day grew darker and darker he saw less and less. He was determined to stick around for a full 24 hours so he could grab as much information about a standard day as he could.

At 2400 hours, he had sat back in a chair he stole from a local preschool. He hated back problems that came with a stakeout and since he still had another 12 hours or so to go, he was going to make sure he was comfortable. Cheetah perked up in his chair when a white van had pulled up to the entrance. He had gotten out his notepad and was ready to right down guard formation, unit numbers, everything he could gather when he realized they weren't suits or collars.

Cheetah was around the corner of the main door as they had already gone inside. Well this just got about ten times more interesting. He thought to himself as he peered inside, the group dispatching guards they passed by. He took the time to slip in the main door and follow the group from the shadows. He followed the group to a rather secure looking door, before ducking into a side room. He took notice of the most obvious hiding spaces and chose none of them, instead unhooking two of his trench knives and digging them into the walls just above the door, hoisting himself up above the door frame. The explosion went off after he had hoisted himself up and nearly sent him back first to the ground.

He managed to pull his knives from the wall and land softly on the ground without making a noise large enough to alert the assailants of his position. He had peered out of the room and watched the pack of people walk through the entrance they had created, one man a short distance behind the company. Looks like he's scanning. Must be a heavy hitter that one, ready to spring into action the moment a situation gets rough. Probably a fast fucker too, but not as fast as me. Cheetah continued to stalk the pack, ducking in and out of rooms whenever possible to break any line of sight.

The archer was loud. He ducked into a room long before she ran past. Cheetah waited and assessed the situation. This was probably the research section of the building, which meant that there must be a virus or a pathogen around here dangerous enough that he could ransom off to the military to get them off of his ass. He definitely had a growing curiosity with this group, but curiosity kills cats. And he is a big cat.

It was at this point, ducked safely within a room, that he put on his gas mask and began to silently rummage the room, looking for a file or something to point him in the right direction. He heard bullets clatter on the ground from down the hall, and his head perked up. He moved from his position at a nearby desk to just beside the door leading out to the hallway. The archer was surely past him at this point and no doubt rushing the man taking the rear guard.

It was a gut feeling that Cheetah had not to leave the room at that particular moment. He was ready to rush out and sprint past the two but some gut feeling deep in himself kept him from doing so. His life was saved by it moments later when there was an explosion right in the area he would have been able to make it to with his speed, and the sound of a sharp object digging into flesh and striking bone. A sound that excited Golden Cheetah, that made him remember all the bodies he had passed by getting to this point.

It feels like a red night tonight.

Cheetah unsheathed both his katana's from his back and stepped into the hallway, watching the rear guard walk towards the archer assailant. He didn't know much about the situation at the moment, but he knew that the pack that had been moving through MAVU was out of reach and this man was the only thread remaining to his curiosity. He took one step forward and unleashed a crated under his back foot as he sprang forward with such speed and intensity, a reason to be called a Cheetah. The man had just taken a swipe at the archer's leg and Cheetah decided it would be the best course of action to supplement his attack, choosing to sheathe his katanas and pull two of the trench knives he carried on his belt.

As he slowed himself down nearing the fight he chose not to swing his trench knives but to bring his elbow up quick towards the Archer's head, hoping that she would choose to focus her dodge on one of the attacks instead of the both of them.

Anybody can give me a compliment, but the only ones that really mean much to me are from my princess.

”If possible, leave the man alive. Obviously if it's between you or him, take him, but I think he might be more useful to us living than dead for the moment."

Zulu would give the slightest of nods at his change in orders, cutting a hole into the new shutters without any difficulty. Unlike the shutter earlier Zulu would avoid kicking the hole forward, wary towards it possibly crashing into the storage containing the diseases they were looking forward to. While extraction of these viruses would still be possible in such a state, the growing amount of commotion outside only made it more apparent that The Pack had little time to waste with unnecessary delays. Better safe than sorry after all.

Gently pushing the weakened part of the structure with his enhanced strength, Zulu would send a carved hole falling over onto the ground, revealing the rest of the Storage Ward. His eyes examined the new room with efficient haste, the fading vapors failing to obscure all of his vision. Not having forgotten his new objective, Zulu would walk into the Storage Ward, sword out and at the ready. With the vapors having faded and there being little to obstruct his view, Henri’s figure would be as clear as day.

Allowing the man not another second to attempt to persuade him, The Cybernetic Swordsman would charge forward with the speed of a bullet, his sword poised to slash upwards. Once within melee range, he would commit to a series of four slashes, each strike aimed to slice through Gamma’s cybernetic limbs a few inches past where they began.

Eliza's shoulder's fell. She opened her mouth as if to protest, then with visible effort, closed it and lowered her head. Her hand, however, sharply contrasted the still demeanor, moving from a casual twirl to a wild yanking that threatened to tear her hair out of her scalp. After a few tugs, it changed objectives, nails digging underneath the burnt skin on the side of her face and peeling it away in strips.

"Okayyy," she said finally, teeth clenched tight. "Okay. The mission. Right. The big, important mission with all the scary little buggies."

She moved to follow Zulu, though her posture was visibly less lackadaisical than before. Instead, it was restrained, each step a rigid pseudo-march, head pointed sharply forward. She didn't care about MAVU, or assassins, or lost friends. People died, that that was that. If Alpha died, she'd probably get upset, but few other people would garner that sort of reaction. At the mention of lab rats, however, her interest was piqued, and the talk of trojan horses broke her clenched lips again into a smile.

"I like that. I like that a lot."

Don't stress about what you can't do. You'll have your fun. After all, the best present ever is only a room away.

By the time she passed through the decontamination room, her enthusiasm had returned, though her finger still picked idly at her face. She ignored the others in the room, pushing past Zulu and the stupid man to get at the rows of drawers that lined the cold walls. She didn't even pay mind to the people in clean suits cowering at the rear, eyes intently scanning label after label, pausing from time to time with a gasp of delight.

"They've really got everything in here," she exclaimed, yanking open a drawer and pulling out a vial of off-white liquid. Her eyes shifted to the workers in the back, and her smile widened. "Catch!"

She flung the vial with all her might in their direction.

Alone she drifts from ancient mists
Nary a candle, nary a wish
But in the wont of wandering paths
Through wooded knolls, and windworn crags
She seeks a face she thought as friend
But now -- she thinks as judgement's end

Quiver managed to strike true with her arrows cover turned into debris through strength and an arrow not meant for piercing other arrow burrowed into an arm. Neither was enough to end a fight however painful as it may have been a fight was going to continue and as she looked to head in a explosion went off. Further in but this portion of the labs weak structurally from the first demolition charge lead to a collapse within the hall looking to wall the archer in. A few bits of debris rained on her heavy enough to have delivered a descent thud and maybe cause bruising but fell off of her like nothing.

It gave time for her opponent to close the gap and launch an attack her way though. He sent banter and closed in with a kick aimed at the archer's calf a hook intended to knock her down. It wouldn't result in much of so much as a flinch though. It was impressively fast and packed more then enough power behind it but there was the issue of who she was, or more so what she was. It was more like kicking a solid stone, plenty of people had suffered broken bones do to trying to hit a girl when they were in fact more so hitting a wall. Another man comes in quick, didn't seem on the side of the main attackers and quick to send an elbow toward her head.

Rather then avoid it she directs her strength and speed towards it. Intending to head butt the fist with a body that was like granite with the kind of force that let her lift cars or turn arrows into having bullet equal velocity. This was followed by a swift jab looking to strike just below the ribs of the speedster looking to ravage guts spleen and the lower ribcage. Her fist able to hit more like a speeding truck then a fist and directed into a confined area. Using her bow for range she'd look to loop around and hit the man behind the speedster with an ever present smile. A bow used like a staff looked to strike the left temple, she'd have preffered to dial her attack back some but it couldn't be helped in such combat. Much as she didn't want to add more bodies to her name when in up close combat she couldn't pull her punches. "You two together or is this a free for all?" Elektra remarked while figuring trying the "surrender and tell them there rights" deal wasn't going to get her far this early in a fight.

"YOU ABSOLUTE INCOMPETENT IDIOTS!" Vanderhaal exploded, turning away from the all-encapsulating wall of monitors and turning towards the various stationed researchers. A crosd of heads looked back at him, their expressions apprehensive; the CEO of MAVU leaned forward upon the rail of the raised platform, palms splayed against the shined chrome.

"HOW HARD IS IT? THE FIRST THREAT WE ATTEMPT TO RESPOND TO AS A UNIFIED FORCE, AND YOU CAN'T EVEN PAGE AN OPERATIVE SUCCESSFULLY?"

"But you know we sent Delta out on assignment knowing full well that—"

"OPERATIVE GAMMA IS CURRENTLY FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE. DO YOU SEE THE CAMERAS IN FRONT OF YOU? HALF OF HIS BRAIN IS SMARTER THAN ALL OF YOUR COLLECTIVE MONKEY MINDS! HE IS IRREPLACABLE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ARE SECONDARY."

"Yes, but—"

"DEPLOY OPERATIVES ALPHA AND BETA ON THE SOUTHWEST ROOF. INSTRUCT THEM BOTH TO HEAD THE TARGETS OFF BEFORE THEY TRY TO LEAVE SECURE STORAGE. IF GAMMA DIES, I AM TERMINATING ALL OF YOU."

γ

There was no time to speak, to crack a joke— not even time to think. Only act. Veingeur looked through the alphabetized storage containers, scanning the letters as they moved past his vision.

M. N... O...

P.

The drawer was thrown open as Veigneur's hands clasped the handle of a jar, moving to place it upon a nearby counter. One hand procured a decent spoonful of a chalky white substance from the marked bottle while his other grabbed an aluminum tray and a sheet of waxed paper; using the Intuitive Medical System held within his arm prosthesis, a sharpened scalpel was procured and dragged along the face of the softened aluminum to scrape the top and produce a pile of metal powder.

Veigneur was producing a flash powder, made from a fine mixture of potassium perchlorate and aluminum powder. With the advanced speed and strength of his artificial limbs, creating a pile of the powdered metal wasn't taxing, nor did it take long; he carefully transfered the material to the wax paper as well, pouring it over the white and beginning to turn the paper in upon itself to thoroughly mix the two powders in a technique known as the oddly-named "diaper method". Eventually, the two substances mixed into a homogenous, dark grey mass upon the wax paper.

As if on cue, metal clattered noisily to the ground near the entrance to the storage ward. Operative Gamma returned the tools to his metal fingers, both literally and figuratively abstaining from showing his hand; the hidden equipment would be a helpful surprise to have. He hoped. If he were even to get out of this alive.

Chemical vapors leaked in from the still-active decontamination chamber, spilling out onto the floor near the front of the storage ward and dissipating into the darkness. Through the billowing cloud stepped the man from earlier; a man with prosthetics much like himself, though much more unhinged than the aging scientist. Veigneur took a step back, his lower limbs already calibrating and internally coiling to give him a burst of speed, should he need it.

His opponent's movement, however, nearly caught him off guard.

Having no implants to enhance reaction speed like Aleph, Operative Gamma would have been completely at the man's mercy had it not been for his ocular implant. The system of his artificial organs and limbs were all connected, allowing his appendages to react faster than his natural body could; and even so, the speed of a bullet meant that the technology could barely register that short of a distance covered in so minimal a time frame.

Veigneur's knees reflexively bent and pushed against the tiled floor of the storage ward, sending him backward and ultimately sparing him from getting all of his artificial limbs amputated; however, the strikes still cut a few inches into each appendage, outright disabling the medical system within his right arm while still retaining functionality in the other. His legs were the least damaged, being the first to move— they, too, had slices into the material, however.

While moving back, Gamma reached into his lab coat's pocket and procured a match, striking it against his arm and throwing it at the pile of the mixture upon the counter. The second the flame touched, the operative would close his eyes and turn away.

Another explosion occurred in the research wing, though it was decidedly less lethal than the last; rather than a concussive force, the detonation unleashed a blinding flash of light and sound that left Gamma's ears ringing— as well as those of any other person within the lab, should they not have sufficient protection. The entire eruption was akin to that of a flashbang's— normally, the mixture would not have had such an intense reaction but the access to purified, if not enhanced chemicals within the storage ward would prove otherwise.

Landing upon his feet, Operative Gamma dashed behind a counter and sprinted towards the hole in the shutter, tearing out a tube providing the circulation of coolant upon the wall and sending more condensed vapor into the room. Unlike the mist in the decontamination room, the clouds were much thicker and stayed upon the ground, gathering to form an obsucring fog within the ward.

The researchers in the back of the room, having cleanroom suits upon their bodies as instructed by the head researcher of MAVU, would show relative fear towards the girl as she threw the vial at the group; however, the reinforced nature of the glass meant that it struck one of the men rather anticlimactically, bruising his arm but not outright shattering upon contact. It dropped to the ground with a high-pitched clatter.

"Just take what you want and go— we haven't done anything to you, and we won't stop you." One of the researchers stated bitterly, their visage hidden by the visor of the suit.

Last edited by Praeceps on Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The hit did nothing to his opponent, but the Intern still persisted. He had to, after all. Jean didn't tell him to give up at the first sign of danger, no matter how severe. As the matter from the guard's corpse fuelled the healing of his burns, he felt something strike the appendage it was attached to, severing it cleanly in two and stopping the healing process in its tracks. He wanted to scream, but had no mouth to do so with, so a faint gurgle would have to suffice as a display of pain. The Intern raised another appendage, moving to strike the woman once more, but an arrow pierced through one of his eyes to prevent the movement before it would even register as a threat. It was in that moment, with an arrow in his eye and a searing pain through an appendage he never had before, that the Intern finally realised his fate.

He was going to die.

He didn't want to die.

At this point, survival instinct should've kicked in. The intern should've run for cover, he should've left the facility, he should've at least turned his attention away from killing the invaders to focus on healing the wounds he had already sustained, then maybe he wouldn't have to sustain any more. The pain was making it hard to think, hard to move through it all, but he didn't have a choice. No matter how much he wanted to survive, no matter how slim his chances were in this fight, no matter how powerful, how harrowing his fear of death may be... the Intern was given a task, and he had no choice but to complete it.

Another pain, this one not located anywhere near his face. The Intern looked down to his chest to see a hole right through the centre, and, with the last breath left in his lungs, he sighed. His body sank to the floor rather unremarkably, sustaining yet another blast as he hit the ground that served little purpose besides proving the man dead. In his final moments, the Intern made a move. There was somehow enough strength, enough will in the very back of his mind to power his body after death, even just for a few seconds.

The Intern aimed his dying appendage at the woman's ankles, slashing it forwards in the hope of tripping her up. A final attack, one last attempt to complete the task he had died trying to accomplish, all for him. Even in his last moments, the Intern couldn't break free.

With the Indigo Serum, nothing could.

----

Despite having much of the clean suit damaged by the fire, Jean still kept the mask over his face. There wasn't much reason for him to do so, of course; pathogens weren't really a risk, anonymity would be ruined almost as soon as he opened his mouth, and any extra burns to his face would cause nothing but ecstasy... but it didn't feel right to remove it just yet. There was something almost comforting about a covered face. That sense of detachment from the self, the almost depersonalising edge that wearing a mask could carry, it was all a good excuse for him to keep it on for now.

They finally reached their objective; the room where the pathogens were said to be stored. It was busy, but Jean was expecting that. MAVU had a lot of employees, after all. It was a shame these ones were all in clean suits as well... seeing a few familiar faces would've been quite nice, especially given the way Jean felt to some of those faces in particular. Though, with all the mist in the room, it would've been hard to pick them out, anyway.

There was yet another explosion, but this one didn't leave any burns. Shame. Still, despite not causing Jean any personal harm, this third explosion did prove to him one thing; whoever was in this room was willing, if not able, to defend themselves. He stepped through the obscuring fog, keeping a slow pace as his eyes scanned the room for whoever had caused the blast. There was Eliza, but she was with the pack. There were a few people at the back of the room, but they looked too scared to be able to do anything. There was the man by the shutter, but his face was hard to see through all the vapour... that was, until Jean got closer. Then he could see exactly who it was.

"Bisset?" He asked, as if addressing a long-lost friend "Julien Bisset? Ha! Fancy seeing you here! Aren't you doing well for yourself, eh?"

Jean laughed, keeping an eye on Julien as he slowly moved towards the back of the room.

"Actually, you might not want to answer that." He sighed "Considering, ah... you know... all this carnage."

He reached for the arm of one of the researchers at the back, dragging him away from his place by the wall and holding a needle to his neck. By this point, the fog would've been completely obscuring Jean from Julien's vision- or, at least, that's how it was in reverse. Jean couldn't see the face of his old employer, but he could certainly imagine it, and imagining it felt wonderful.

"So? Did you miss me~?"

----

The second intern, affectionately nicknamed 'Mouthface', stood guard in the next room over, intending to stop anyone who managed to get past his transformed colleague by the entrance. He didn't know the first had died, and he had no idea what he would be up against. All he knew was duty.

Probably, it died. She wasn't without regret, but it was regret that whatever it was, or whatever it had once been had been drawn into this, not regret for having put it down. Killing wasn't pleasant, but it was a necessity - and she knew, sometimes, that death could come as a release. A single whipcord tentacle struck forward as she passed, striking her ankle. The plates absorbed it, and she discharged a burst of electricity through them as it touched, discouraging further attack.

It was done. The next room held... something else. So it was to be a gauntlet, then. She considered this, staring at the new opponent for a moment, considering options, but shook her head. At some point, these things would have to be contained or destroyed. Better to get it over with, and better her than someone unqualified, who would be killed trying, or who would have qualms about pulling the trigger when it was obviously necessitated. The creature's head was split into partitions, toothed and writhing like something out of a Lovecraftian tale.

There had been a point in her life when that would have phased her somewhat. At this point, though, if she was staring at it overlong, it was to try and analyze its weak points, not its origin story. Different than the other one, certainly, and yet there was a certain similarity of design, science gone wrong in the hands of someone who watched too many horror movies. Genetics were not her field.

Electromagnetism was.

At this point, the building was largely a lab, and in a lab, things were often metallic, or contained metallic parts. She touched a tabletop with a gloved hand as she walked by, realigning its magnetic field, then shifting her own and sending the tabletop suddenly flying across the room at high speed, towards the tentacled parts that might once have been a head.

Better to crush it outright. This was not a time for sympathy, nor for mercy.

Fredrick hopped back, his foot stinging a bit from the rather soild impact. He wasn't in the habit of kicking things hard enough to break his own bones, but that didn't mean it was the most comfortable of experiences.

What he hadn't expected was for a complete outsider to show up and attack the archer at not Joyous himself. As far as he was aware The Pack hadn't outsourced any men, and he differently wasn't a member. Which meant he was likely someone fighting for the thrill of it, a prospect that brought a smile to his face.

As the archer attacked the stranger first, Joyous realized he wasn't likely to be exempt from her counterattack. So instead of waiting around for it to happen, he took a step away from her, pulling back as the bow whizzed inches in front of his face with the speed to knock it clean off.

"Well, I've never met him before, but if he's gunning for you then I'm not exactly going to turn him away. So," He turned to look at the stranger for a second, "if you're alright with it, I suppose we're on the same side."

Tough metas were difficult to deal with, seeing as regular tactics didn't really work all that well. Still, that just meant he had to attack more unconventional points. With the tools he had on hand, that simply meant he had to get a bit creative.

Scooping of his revolver off the floor with his nondominant hand, he swiveled the face the archer. If his leg hadn't so much as phased her, he was willing to bet a point black shot wouldn't do too much better. Yet, he wasn't really trying to shoot her either. Moving as if to pistol whip the side of her head he stopped just short of hitting her. Instead, he hammered down on the trigger. Firing all four shots, directly next to her ear.

He wasn't sure how tough her skin was exactly, but if she could hear them talking then he was pretty sure her ears worked. Which meant someone firing off a gun that close that many times, was going to hit her senses like a truck. With over 140 decibels blasting directly into her ear, it wouldn't just ring a little, the sound would physically hurt. Whatever made her tougher might stop the damage from being permanent, but he hoped to disorient her bad enough to allow for his mysterious partner to follow up.

As the Cybernetic Swordsman rushed forward to strike the aging doctor, his mind would process something was amiss. Years of combat had honed the man’s body to understand the very vibrations of a successful cleave, to know when his blade struck as true as his desires. There were no such vibrations in his strikes. He had committed a grievous mistake, one unbecoming of a hunter such as himself.

He had underestimated his prey.

With a brief flash and explosion, Zulu’s world would go white for but a moment as his cybernetic optical machinery quickly filtered out the sudden overwhelming light. His auditory senses would be less fortunate however as the enhanced chemicals sounding off reverberated within his sensors, vibrations bouncing around his artificial ear canals. Sonic weapons were among the things Zulu harbored a disdain for being attacked by as the loss of a critical sense often served to complicate his affairs. But that’s all it would be. That’s all he would allow it to be. A simple nuisance.

His eyes worked and Gamma was proving himself unable of doing any lasting damage. That meant that Zulu still had to bring this man back to Alpha. Alive.

Switching to his thermal imaging, Zulu would note that the thick gas from the coolant was cold enough to block most of the heat that came from the otherside. By adding this to most of Gamma being prosthetic and not running blood, the Cybernetic Hunter would not be able to simply spot him through the gas. He’d have to go through it.

The grooves all throughout Gamma’s body would glow blue, fortunately hidden by the scorched suit he had on. He’d begun to amplify his physical abilities, figuring that if the man had just barely been able to dodge Zulu going at his baseline speed, a boost in velocity would be what he needed to complete his objective. There was no further moment wasted in thought, no more time given to the man to keep planning and scheming to survive.

Through the condensed fog would erupt Zulu, his mind faster than his body as he scanned the room for his target. Should his lock onto Gamma, he’d continue his rush, no step wasted upon emerging into the room. Now over one hundred miles faster than a 9mm bullet, Zulu’s sword would follow a different movement, slashing at the man’s legs first. Whether his slashes would hit, he’d twist around on his right foot, the back of his left heel twirling to smash against the side of Gamma’s skull, aiming to knock him unconscious.

Cheetah was no stranger to speed. He watched as the woman's head whipped towards his elbow, and took into consideration that it was as if the smiling man had kicked a pillar. Seeing no reason to possibly break his own arm, he kicked himself into high gear and took a fast step back, impacting the ground and sending himself a good twenty feet away. He still wasn't used to using his speed in close quarters so it wasn't a refined technique of his yet.

"Yeah, sure. Been following your pack for awhile now, might as well lend a hand to a fellow robber." Cheetah didn't have much that could penetrate a thick hide, usually he had to rely on his teammates in these sorts of situations or avoid it all together. Fighting to help this man though, he didn't have the luxury of running to save his own skin. He had to fight to survive- no, he had to fight to win.

Cheetah ran up close to the woman at normal speed, and attempted to kick off of her sternum with his speed, to leave an impact crater like he had been leaving on the ground every time he's taken off into a full sprint. It was the only weapon he had to deal with the likes of her, and he was going to put his hat into the ring and hoped that it worked.

The smiling man had just let off 4 gunshots, which made Cheetah's ears ring from the sound. It couldn't have sounded any better for the woman and hopefully it would be a welcome distraction so that he could get this kick off undisturbed.

Anybody can give me a compliment, but the only ones that really mean much to me are from my princess.